The humiliated Garnett contacts his employer, the sleazy twenty-something tech entrepreneur Derek Danforth (Josh Hutcherson), an executive at the respectable and successful Boston-based business, Danforth Enterprises. Upon learning of Clay and what he’s done to one of his data mining branches, Derek orders Garnett to use his underworld connections to seek out Clay and whack him. Garnett tracks down Eloise’s farm and spots Clay there, choosing to attack him with his gang of several men. Of course, Clay’s Beekeeper skills are no match for these criminal goons, and soon enough Eloise’s farm is burning to the ground itself.
As Verona and her FBI partner, Matt (Bobby Naderi), investigate the aftermath of the incident, Verona ironically recalls losing her virginity in the barn that’s now been burned to a crisp, writing off the loss of her childhood home as something more factual than tragic. This is an important tonal key Ayer and Wimmer are hitting: Clay’s work isn’t clean, he’s not a magical character who’s going to wash the Evil away and reward the Good. He’s instead seen as a necessary force of nature, almost like an act of God.
Speaking of all things Biblical, Clay leaves Garnett for last, “Commando”-style, making the sleazebag call Derek before tying the criminal to his truck and sending it careening over a bridge. Clay informs Derek that he’s coming his way, and a worried Derek runs to Wallace Westwyld (Jeremy Irons), the former head of the CIA who now works privately for Danforth. When Westwyld discovers that Clay is a Beekeeper, he’s already presuming Derek is a dead man. That is, until he learns from the current CIA director, Janet (Minnie Driver), that Clay is actually retired from the organization, meaning that the current active Beekeeper is going to be sent after the rogue Clay.